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I can't see any photographs in that article, apart from the single one underneath the title which definitely doesn't show a clean tunnel! Have they been removed since the article was first posted? Interesting article though, nonetheless.

Well yes, up to a point I agree in an ideal world, but in practice what of the human cost? A friend of mine had had a two-bedroom council flat for nearly 25 years, ever since her early twenties. Having grown up nearby she'd lived there, worked there, brought up her daughter there, made her...

My sincere condolences to all those who have been affected by this sort of thing, and my thanks to those railway staff who have chosen to share their experiences on this thread.

The thing that amazed me were all the people still calmly sat in the back of the bus, despite the sirens and a huge freight train bearing down on them, albeit rather slowly. "Do you think we should move up the bus, Doris, before we all get slowly crumpled into red goo?" "No it's OK, Edith...

Indeed. This, for me, was the biggest jaw-dropper of the whole story. I'm no longer in the habit of regularly taking late-night trains, but back in the days when I did, my experience was that the last train to any given set of destinations would always run no matter what; and if it really...

Yeah, I have a friend from the north of Ireland, and when she came over here a couple of times a few years ago she was absolutely stunned by the density of our rail network and how, in the London area at least, it was basically the standard method of public transportation. She was absolutely...

Quite apart from the Duchy of Cornwall stuff, there's also this news from four years ago that you may have missed: The Guardian - Secret papers show extent of senior royals' veto over bills Apparently 39 different bills in recent years have been affected by the Queen and Prince Charles...

Indeed. Must put my anorak on here and say that, as someone who spent the 1990s lovingly taping them off of BBC2 (if only I'd known about the forthcoming invention of cheap DVD box-sets!), they're in fact only about 43 minutes each, making your point even more salient.

Indeed. I consider myself a reasonably well-informed member of the general public, an embedded software engineer by trade, who used to be a frequent rail traveller and now just an occasional one. I've also had a lifelong interest in railways, not up to "spotter" standards ;) but certainly I...

I just watched the first episode, via my TiVo recording of Monday's My5 broadcast (channel 152 on Virgin, not the on-demand service). Much to my surprise, having read this thread first, there was no swearing in it whatsoever, despite featuring the Bounds Green segment. Then I realised that...

The difference is, my washing machine doesn't suddenly stop washing certain types or brands of clothes that it used to do before. My car stereo doesn't suddenly stop playing half the cassettes and/or CDs that it used to. It's not a great analogy.

See also Bishop's Stortford back in the late 1980s (in my younger, drinking, days, I don't know what it's like now). Most of the people I worked with came from Stortford or thereabouts, and were terribly snooty about neighbouring-ish Harlow New Town down the road, saying how awfully common it...

I always thought this was quite a good take on the whole Freedom of Speech thing: https://xkcd.com/1357/ ...not that I entirely agree with it, as I don't think someone should be immune from arrest for hurling racist abuse, but perhaps that would be better framed under harrassment laws etc...

Lovely Freudian slip there! :-)

Quite. It was rather disgraceful, wasn't it? As you may be aware, Roydon (further up the line, as mentioned above) has a similar situation, only with staggered platforms; both before the level crossing, to make it extra-amusing. Until this year, the ticket office & machine used to be on the...

Totally understandable of you, but a shame, as I'd love to know how you'd tackle Roydon level crossing on the Herts/Essex border. Having spent quite a bit of my life stuck at it (although less than I used to back when it was the huge swing gates driven by a man with a big wheel in the...

For the benefit of the few of us who aren't Facebook mates with the videographer ;), I found a longer version here. Although it does include the end of the opening overtake mentioned, I would have liked it to start a few seconds earlier still, just to get a feel for the road and traffic at that...

Yup, well GN have just lost my (admittedly small amount of) business permanently over this. I have to journey into King's Cross from Potters Bar and back a couple of times a month, often with a disabled friend. Usually this is on a weekday, but recently we needed to do it on Saturday 9th July...

One of the things I find most disturbing about this, having read the report, is that the whole incident was nearly entirely dismissed. Were it not for the night-shift at Swindon RIS reviewing the daytime log and going "Hang on a minute..." and arranging for the CCTV to be captured, it seems...

Perhaps if you'd read further down the thread, to her post where she said... ...you'd know the answer to the question in your first paragraph. Then perhaps you wouldn't have had to write the other two.